Monday, March 07, 2005

It is time for all Christians to be more conscientious about giving open attribution to the sources that inform their thought.

It is also time for evangelical Christians to exercise some humility when interpreting scripture. Saying that "God's word is clear" on an issue does not make it so. Nor does it assure the validity of your interpretation of scripture.

4 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Robert Parham?s 03-07-05 article is a poorly written slam. The Southern Baptist Right has been harping on abortion, stem-cell harvesting, homosexual marriage, human cloning and euthanasia for quite some time. Even if Warren took the word ?non-negotiable? from a Catholic ad in USA Today it surely doesn?t require attribution ? and the assertion that he did so is clearly not proven by the evidence given.

Here?s another great statement by Parham: ?Warren reads from a small Bible, as evidenced by his political endorsement of Bush.? I didn?t vote for Bush, but voting for him is evidence of ?reading from a small Bible?? Surely Parham doesn?t really believe this. Or ?to dismiss the war in Iraq as a debatable issue is to dismiss both the teaching of Jesus, which are clear, and Just War Theory, which clearly says that the preemptive war in Iraq is morally unjust.? I have NEVER been for the Iraq war either, but I?m not so superficial as to suppose its merits cannot be reasonably debated both on the basis of Jesus? teaching and the Just War Theory.

Parham?s article is just as hysterical as much of the writing I read in Baptist Press. It's time for him to exercise some humility when interpreting the Scripture.

"Moreover, to dismiss the war in Iraq as a debatable issue is to dismiss both the teachings of Jesus, which are clear, and Just War Theory, which clearly says that the preemptive war in Iraq is morally unjust."

One of the questions concerning the Iraq invasion was whether the United States or the UN had the right to enforce the agreements that were in place at the end of the first Iraq war. Though the weapons of mass destruction issue was bogus, possession of such weapons by a man such as an Adolf Hitler or Saddam Hussien raises another difficult moral issue which relates to preemption. Maybe you are so smart a debate of such issues does not increase your understanding. Richard Land had a series of articles on the issue of Iraq and Just War Theory. I found it profitable to read both sides of the issue before I decided he was wrong.

I am not the same person at the previous anonymous. I commend Garret Keizer's article in current Mother Jones, most of which you can read online at www.motherjones.com to this discussion. As I have posted at baptistlife.com Keizer fastforwards Parham's oped by light years, and his laudable May2-3 convo on faith and politics will be exponentially better if he encourages all his presenters to come to Nashville with a working knowledge of Keizer's full piece in conjunction with the late Feb piece in the New Republic by EJ Dionne about how progressive Christians can win the ideological for the Center of Politics informed by Faith Convictions.